


Dark Cloths

by parsnips (trifles)



Category: Equilibrium (2002)
Genre: Arts, Betrayal, Emotions, Gen, Memories, Non-Graphic Violence, Partner Betrayal, Religion, Self-Denial, Self-Doubt, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-27
Updated: 2005-05-27
Packaged: 2017-10-11 08:29:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trifles/pseuds/parsnips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Preston hated these memories, these memories where he could never tell if there had been something there, some touch he hadn't felt, some touch he couldn't feel."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Cloths

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 5.27.05, for flyakate.

  
The scraped-clean window gave light as if it were a lantern in a dark corridor. Waking with the dawn was a more fierce experience now than before the rebellion -- previously the sun had been controlled fixture in the sky, and its light had affected Preston's home little more than a dimmer switch would.

The sun had no stops on it now. Lying in bed, squinting into the burning brilliance, Preston considered adding curtains.

And just like that, (_always like that, memory slapping in place like skin on skin_) Preston remembered Partridge, thick, blond Partridge and the priest hole they'd found in the Nethers. The sense offender had wept over his beads, lines of blood cracking on his back, and he'd rocked back and forth as Preston directed the gathering of evidence and Partridge entered the little room, barely five by five, carved beneath a stairway and painted illicit colors. Crosses and chalices, a Bible and a leather switch -- artifacts of a useless devotion to a dangerous emotional state.

(_Partridge said, They call it God. Strange, isn't it. I suppose, said Preston, and he shot the offender before peering through the false panelling into the room within._)

There had been a low, upholstered bench -- a kneeler -- facing the underside of the building's stairway. An altar had been raised before it. To the right had been a small set of shelves, lined with contraband balanced atop a folded robe. And to the left

(_it'd been a window. A painted window, showing a night sky. There'd been stars, points of white and red and yellow and orange and blue picked out against a blue-black background unspoiled by city glare. The man had painted the picture of a wooden frame around his untarnished sky, with small whorls in the pattern, and over this he had draped a real curtain around the sky, thick dark Cleric cloth that could be pulled shut during the day, and then at night_)

the sense offender could sweep aside the cloth and see his own stars.

Partridge had looked a long time at the window, and Preston had watched Partridge. Slowly, very slowly, Partridge had reached out with two blunt fingers and tugged on the edge of the curtain. For a moment it had looked as if the cloth passed over Partridge's palm, a slow drag that Preston could almost feel on his own hand, uncomfortable and strange (_but he felt it, he did, he felt it all_), and then the curtain was gone, pulled down by Partridge and stuffed ingloriously in an evidence bag. The watch alarm went off and they looked at one another as they took out their intervals, metal to skin--

Preston hated these memories, these memories where he could never tell if there had been something there, some touch he hadn't felt, some touch he couldn't feel. All he had now were the actions done and no context for them, no catalogue, no moment that said _here_ was Partridge feeling emotions, _here_ was Partridge being Preston's partner and nothing more, _here was Preston seeing Partridge's knuckles on his gun, Partridge's eyes darting up from behind the book, here was the curtain to block out the stars, here was_

The sun had finally risen beyond the immediate blaze. Preston's room was enveloped in thick, blond gold. This was a new age, and there were no more Clerics; he would cover the windows with the remnants of his robes.

END

 


End file.
